NEW YORK — Reserve guard Mike Wilks won’t play tonight against New York and is doubtful for Wednesday’s game at Boston, due to a hamstring injury he suffered in Sunday’s loss to New Orleans. As expected, reserve shooting guard J.R. Smith will make his regular-season debut tonight, following a three-game team-imposed suspension for his role in a nightclub altercation during preseason.

Of course, Smith will make his 2007-08 debut in Madison Square Garden, where he was part of the brawl between the Nuggets and Knicks last December.

“J.R. has worked hard, and the incident we want to put behind him,” said Nuggets coach George Karl, who spoke to Smith one-on-one for a couple minutes after today’s shootaround. “The process of mentoring and maturing, we’re all in it together. He’s a part of our team and an important piece of our team.

“He will have minutes tonight. They might be short, they might be long. He makes four 3-pointers, they’ll probably be long.”

Wilks’ hamstring injury in the second quarter on Sunday put Karl in a sudden bind. He had four guards unavailable, counting Smith, Chucky Atkins (groin) and Anthony Carter (hand).

“We didn’t know how to get in our rotation or comfort zone,” said Karl, whose team is 2-1.

This morning, Smith sat courtside at Madison Square Garden, about 10 feet from where the brawl occurred. After granting numerous interviews, he shook his head in regards to the magnitude of media at the Nuggets shootaround.

“Everybody’s expecting us to fight or something — like we didn’t learn from last year,” Smith said. “I got suspended 10 games, Carmelo was suspended 15 games, Nene, who just stepped on the court, got one game. And they think we’re going to go out there and ruin our season like we did last year. We’re not going to do that. People just love to hype things up.”

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.